Here are quick looks at two upcoming Wii U games: New Super Mario Bros. U and Sing Party. One is the quintessential platformer while the other is a karaoke party game. I kept getting corrected on that. Both are first… Continue Reading →

Here are quick looks at two upcoming Wii U games:New Super Mario Bros. U and Sing Party. One is the quintessential platformer while the other is a karaoke party game. I kept getting corrected on that. Both are first party titles that will be available for the Wii U at launch on Nov. 18.

New Super Mario Bros. U
There are two New Super Mario Bros. games coming out this year. The first wasNew Super Mario Bros. 2, which was a solid but unspectacular effort on Nintendo 3DS. The sequel was competitive coin collecting wrapped up in the charms of nostalgia. With New Super Mario Bros. U, I’m hoping for a fresher take on platforming.

And judging on what I’ve played so far, it seems the game does change the formula slightly. The upcoming Wii U release tries to bridge the gap between Mario novices and experts. The way Nintendo does this is by giving newcomers a simpler way to play using the Wii U Gamepad. The controller lets them creating platforms for the other players and stun enemies.

Of course, no new Mario title is complete with a new slew of power-ups and New Super Mario Bros. U boasts a balloon-type baby Yoshi and a flying squirrel suit. But the big reveal at the event was Boost Rush Mode.

The new feature is similar to a speed run. Like Gold Rush Mode in New Super Mario Bros. 2, this option lets players choose from several level packs. The pack consist of two or three timed levels.

The big difference between the two is that the Boost Rush Mode is built for multiplayer and that includes the Wii U Gamepad. The goal is to get through the stages with your friends as quickly as possible while collecting coins. The group shares a certain number of lives to do it — usually 10 or 15 — depending on the size of the group. The mode does have Miiverse integration built in. Perhaps, you’ll be able to share your coin count?

The thing is players can’t linger and explore on a level because it is scrolling forward, pushing players to keep up with the fast pace. It gets hectic and there’s some panic involved as players jump over and on top of each other to get through pits or obstacles. Meanwhile, the Wii U Gamepad user has to create platforms and save the occasional misjump. It also offers coin bonuses for players who hit the block.

Sing Party
So with more than 50 songs and a microphone, I assumed that this was a karaoke game. But the folks from Nintendo insisted it wasn’t. They assured me it’s a party game. The difference? The Wii U Gamepad and Sing Party is designed to get everyone involved. Most karaoke games involve one person crooning Billy Joel songs while the others watch the performance.

Sing Party tries to get people involved via sing-a-long, dance and passing the mike. The Wii U Gamepad acts as a guide for the host or performer to get people into the act. It shows the lyrics of the song and offers cues for the star to get the crowd involved. The gamepad will exhort them to get the group clapping or tell the host to cheer on the other participants. There’s even a mock applause meter that shows up after the performance.

From my first impression, it looks similar to any other karaoke game out there. The push for interactivity just changes the perspective of Sing Party ever so slightly. The ability to let others add sounds to their performance via Wii remote is smart but not game changing. It just looks like a perfectly acceptable karaoke game for the fledgling system.

It looks like Shadow of the Colossus. No, no, it’s more like Prince of Persia with a visual hint of Out of this World. You know what? I can see an Ikaruga influence here. Those are the thoughts running through… Continue Reading →

The Shadow of the Colossus vibe comes from the art style and the scale of some of the enormous bosses. The Prince of Persia touch comes in the silky smooth animation and platforming. Moving the main character is effortless. But the biggest giveaway is the obvious lifting of Ikaruga’s polarity gameplay. I mention this to the developers and Ubisoft folks, and they nod and grin.

It’s an idea that’s so distinct that you can tell where it came from instantly. It’s like trying to add turtle-shell throwing to a video game. You’re obviously going to get called on it, but really, it’s not a bad thing. In fact, Housemarque is brilliant for bringing the idea from shooters and adapting it to a Metroidvania-ish world.

In Outland, it’s all about the play between light and dark or in this case orange and blue. Players take on the role of a hero who must keep two sister dieties imprisoned. Once every 30,000 years, they attempt to break free of their cell, and it’s the hero’s job to make sure they stay there.

He does this by switching his polarity between light and dark. Switching to blue allows him to go through blue energy pulses unscathed. Meanwhile, turning orange will do the same thing for tangerine-colored bullets. Housemarque takes this concept and carries it over to combat, where players have to switch to an alternate color to do damage to a foe. For example, if there’s a blue spider, the hero must be orange to kill it.

The same goes for moveable platforms that only function when the hero is the same color as the ledge. Imagine layering these concepts into five worlds, and you get the sense of what we’re dealing with here. Outland has the potential to be one of the most original games out there.

At my recent demo session at Ubisoft’s San Francisco office, I had a chance to play through the tutorial and co-op levels. Learning the general concepts again, I was struck by how Housemarque eases the players into some difficult concepts. Players begin with no polarity or weapons at all, and over the course of the tutorial, they’ll pick these up powers up.

The abilities give players more acess to the wider world. One ability will be a slide that lets them slip through narrow passageways while another is teleportation that lets them access parts of a huge world via a map. As I mentioned before with the Metroidvania reference, it’s a familiar formula. Along the way, players will also pick up coins that are dropped by enemies. The hero uses these at shrines to purchase health, energy and other permanent power-ups. There’s also Mark of the Gods collectibles that give players stronger stat-based improvements, but they’re scattered through the world in hard-to-reach places.

When it comes to the size of Outland, players can expect five worlds, each ruled by their own boss. Each world has a key that’s important to keeping the final boss locked away. Speaking of that climactic battle, players get a preview of that through a flashback that sets up the premise of the game and teaches the basics of the polarity concept. (It’s part of the tutorial.)

The most interesting part of the demo were the co-op modes, which come in two flavors. The first is a timed level that a player and a friend have to complete. In this mode, one player has control over polarity and the two have to go through divergent paths and reach the end. The co-op challenges requires a lot of coordination. In a way, it’s almost like a dance, where one person makes a move, switches polarity and waits for the other to get through an obstacle and so on.

At first, the learning curve is high as players have to coordinate and make the time limit. But as players become sympatico with each other, they can run through the stages more quickly. This definitely requires voice chat.

The other co-op mode occurs in the regular game. It’s more free form as players get to change their own polarity. They can even help out during boss fights. An Ubisoft assistant producer Hiroshi Okun and I tried to defeat the second boss, the high priestess, and normally, it would be impossible for a newbie. I died a lot, but Okun kept me alive, reviving me every so often.

The problem was that the priestess fight takes place in two stages. The first is fairly convention as the hero strikes and hides behind platforms as the priestess sends projectiles at them. Things get a little crazy when the boss destroys the room and players start free-falling. They’ll have to jump across platforms and switch polarities to defeat her. It takes a long time, and a lot of skill. It reminds me that Outland will be difficult even for the hard-core.

But that’s part of the game’s old-school mentality. It’s unapologetically a throwback to the old 1990s days, when difficulty was at the heart of the experience. It’s just another way that Outland reminds me of that past.

Outland is scheduled for release April 26 for PSN and April 27 on Xbox Live Arcade.

Quite frankly, I don’t need any more stress in my life. I already have enough. I have a mortgage to pay. I have a car to worry about. I have reviews to write. I don’t need any additional pressure when… Continue Reading →

Quite frankly, I don’t need any more stress in my life. I already have enough. I have a mortgage to pay. I have a car to worry about. I have reviews to write. I don’t need any additional pressure when it comes to video games. And that’s the reason I was enjoying Kirby’s Epic Yarn when I played at Nintendo’s Redwood City headquarters recently.

From the cutesy characters to the gorgeously designed levels to the fun mechanics, everything about Kirby’s latest adventure exudes a certain sense of calm. Part of that is how Nintendo does co-op. When I played New Super Mario Bros. Wii with my girlfriend, we didn’t get along. The fact that we get bumping into each other, knocking one another into pits or enemies raised the tension around the house. Long story short, we didn’t play together often.

But with Epic Yarn, I can see a different outcome.

First off, the game is set in a world other than Dream Land. During one of Kirby’s excursions, he discovers a Metamato. The fruit looked appetizing so as usual the pink puff tried to eat it. That’s when its owner, a mysterious sorcerer appears, and while Kirby tries to devour it, he ends up getting sucked into a mystical sock. (Yes, I know it doesn’t make much sense, but this is literally how the game starts. See for yourself.)

He discovers that he’s made of yarn now and he can no longer devour enemies as he used to. In this strange world, he now has the ability to change into different shapes like a car or a submarine. It’s this discovery that leads him to rescue Prince Fluff, who happens to be the disposed ruler of this textile realm.

Kirby decides to help Fluff save his Kingdom, and that’s how the two team up.

With that explained, I can now get to what makes this co-op gameplay great. It’s this: You can’t die. That takes a lot of the stress out of this platformer. Sure players may run each other off platformers or toss a friend into an enemy, but they won’t perish. They won’t lose a life. An angel will save them if they get knocked into a pit or Kirby will respawn if he ends up unraveling.

So if you can’t die, where does the challenge in Epic Yarn come in? Well, it’s all in how players co-operate to figure out puzzles, beat bosses and grab enough beads to open patches for new levels. It’s the exploration and item grabbing that will test players’ wits. For example, there’s a collectible item in the Snowland level that Kirby and Fluff come across. Players can break a block to try to get it, but they’ll soon find out that the move creates an impassible obstacle and you can no longer reach it. Perhaps on the second time around, players will learn that they have to grab a spear from an enemy and toss it through the blocks so they can reach it. Rather than rush through Epic Yarn, it’s best to take things slow and careful. After all you have no time limit and no limit on lives.

Other puzzles involve a two-person game, where they’ll have to flip switches for each other or toss an ally over a gap so they can activate a bridge. There’s a lot of teamwork in the adventure. Of course, gamers can also play solo, but it requires more strategic thinking when going through levels. It’s definitely harder to grab all the items and bonuses. It seems as though the Epic Yarn is meant to be played with a friend. I can imagine playing this with the girlfriend without bickering over who killed whom.

As for the gameplay itself, it works remarkably well. Kirby can still do transformations in a way. Double tapping forward or back on the directional pad will turn him into a car. He can float over gaps or catch up to a partner by turning into a parachute. There are also level specific Super Transformations, which turns Kirby into a sled in the Snowland or a dolphin the Water World. In addition, these Super Transformation come with their own unique controls. For example, pressing the A button while being a dolphin will let Kirby grab a ball which he can then try to toss into a hoop.

Complementing the solid platforming base are clever level designs and visuals. I couldn’t help but be impressed with the creativity of Nintendo’s internal team. The textile theme isn’t just window dressing, it has an impact on how the stages are created. Kirby can move in and out of foreground and background by zipping and unzipping passageways. You can see him move beneath the surface of fabrics as as he falls through shutes and tubes in the space-themed Future City. The Epic Yarn has craft quality to it, almost like it’s a more gorgeous version of LittleBigPlanet. I was amazed that this was on a Wii.

Lastly, the collectibles matter in this game a great deal. You can speed run through the game and only see about half of it. Collecting beads is tantamount as they determine whether you get a bronze, silver or gold medal and it also open up patches to other levels. The most important of the lot is the boss stage on each world. Getting a patch on that level opens up the rest of the scenarios in the world, so you can end up getting 100 percent.

In addition to the beads, there are medallions, which helps you get more beads at the bonus wheel at the end of each stage. (Yes, I know the game is all about beads, beads, beads in the same way Mario games are about coins, coins, coins.) Furthermore, there are three collectible furniture pieces scattered throughout each stage. The furniture can be used to decorate Kirby’s hub world. It may seem like superficial at first, but the furniture has another purpose. It opens up a minigames.

From what I played, it seems as though Kirby’s Epic Yarn will be a must-buy for platformer fans. I may even be able to play it with my significant other when it comes out next week.

Sure, I’ve played this before. Yes, it’s more of the same. But when it’s Super Mario Galaxy 2, I don’t mind that fact much. Credit the level design. Nintendo EAD knows how to build well-balanced stages that mix platforming and puzzle elements.

I had a chance to explore levels in 10 galaxies this week at Nintend’s Media Summit. Some of them included Yoshi; others have Mario going solo. All of them are difficult. Nintendo’s Bill Trinen said that compared to the previous game this adventure is going to be more challenging, and that shows.

The game takes concepts from the original and pushes it to the extreme. For example, I played a level with topsy-turvy gravity. That wasn’t uncommon in Super Mario Galaxy. I remember several levels like that, but this time around, players have to deal with localized gravities on platforms, switches that change gravities and gravities that flips depending on the music.

It gets ridiculously difficult, especially if you want to get some of the out-of-the-way items. You can figure out how to get them, but it’s the execution that’s the rub.

When it comes to boss fights, some of them are even bigger. In another scenario, I fought a dragon called Gobblegut. Mario was on a small planetoid and the long, snakelike creature (think of Shenron in Dragon Ball Z) attacked him by crashing and digging into the planet. To defeat him, I had to use Mario’s spin attack to hit the red rings around its body. It’s easier said than done as I had to skitter away from his mouth and retaliate when I had the chance.

As for controlling Yoshi, it’s almost like using another character. The dinosaur has his own special abilities. The most famous one is eating enemies. All you have to do is use the pointer to pick a foe and hit a button to send his tongue flying. Eating baddies makes Yoshi, um, excrete star bits.

But if he eats fruit something interesting happens: The dinosaur gets special abilities. In one level, I ate a blue fruit that filled him with air. Like a balloon, Yoshi floated in air, expelling wind until he eventually reached one platform. I did it again and climbed another. It continued on until hit the transfer point in the branches in the Tree Trunk Galaxy.

Elsewhere, I ran across a fire pepper that made Yoshi go wild. The heat in its mouth made the dinosaur zip vertically up walls. It’s hard as heck to control. I often bumped into walls and lost my momentum so that I fell off platforms or back to the beginning. While moving this fast, the controls are very sensitive and the slightest movement can make him crash and ruin everything.

I eventually got to the star (ie. the goal of each stage), but I had to use Yoshi’s floating jump to make it there.

I asked Trinen if they would show any other power-ups or if other make a return. He didn’t confirm anything outside of the drill and the star mushroom that doubles the amount of life Mario has. The drill is used in puzzles, where Mario has to dig through dirt on planetoids and end up on the other side.

In a stage where everything was gianormous, I had to use the drill on a coin-shaped planetoid to destroy oversized koopas patrolling the perimeter. I also had the opportunity to collect comet coins that open up the harder comet levels, but after dying a few times trying to grab them, I decided to spend my time with more worthwhile levels.

One of them was a stage where the platforms flipped every time I did a spin move. On this level, I had to collect purple coins scattered about. Most of the time, I had to spin right before landing to activate a platform and land safely. Other times, I had to do long jump (That’s pressing the Z and A buttons at the same time.) to reach a platform that was already there but quite distant.

You get in the flow of the level and it’s so easy to spin that it becomes second nature in the game, and sometimes, that could mean flipping the platforms inadvertantly. I did this a lot and died. But the thing with Mario games is that you don’t get frustrated by that. You can die however many times and you don’t get frustrated.

Maybe that’s a testament to the quality of the level design. Maybe it’s the charm that the Italian plumber still has. But no matter the difficulty, I’m sure that Super Mario Galaxy 2 will still be a blast when it arrives May 23.

From the screenshots, Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure seems confusing. The puzzle-platformer appears to be two games at once. On the top screen, there’s a platformer. At the bottom, there’s a match-three puzzle game similar to Bejeweled. But somehow… Continue Reading →

From the screenshots, Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure seems confusing. The puzzle-platformer appears to be two games at once. On the top screen, there’s a platformer. At the bottom, there’s a match-three puzzle game similar to Bejeweled.

But somehow designer Kyle Gray manages to fuse the two genres together. In Henry Hatsworth, players control the titular character. The controls are fairly standard. He moves with the directional pad. He can strike enemies in different directions using the Y button. He can shoot them from a far by pressing the A button. Players jump across chasms and onto platforms with the B button.

Where the game becomes interesting is when players hit the X button. This freezes the top screen and moves the action below. The game becomes a puzzle as players have to match three blocks by moving them horizontally.

Players can use the buttons or they can fiddle with the stylus. Gray, the developer, was an expert and his fingers moved so fast that the puzzle-solving seemed instant. But speed is necessary in this part of the game because the blocks are actually Hatsworth’s fallen foes.

In the game, whenever Hatsworth defeats an enemy he falls into the puzzle as a piece. The screen inches up from the bottom, and if the blocks reach high enough, these enemies are resurrected and come back to haunt Hatsworth.

Depending on the size and difficulty of the enemy, they become different-sized blocks. Players can also juggle enemies to make them fall into the bottom rows of the puzzle.

Although players need to be quick the puzzles to permanently defeat enemies, this element also has some benefit on the platform side. Among the enemy blocks are power-ups and destroying them activates powers on screen. Some powers let Hatsworth move faster. Others allow him to change his shots midair to give them more oomph.

Clear the board quickly enough and players can activate Hatsworth’s super abilities. One, power-up makes him younger. Another puts him into a powerful mech suit, which he uses to crush his enemies.

The whole concept is clever but what the team at EA Tiburon must do is find a way to balance the puzzle and platform so that one doesn’t disrupt the other. When I was playing through the levels, I felt that the puzzle on the bottom moved too fast and I had to constantly interrupt my platforming to tamp down the puzzle below.

I have to say it got annoying at times because the platformer part was compelling. Players enjoyment of the Henry Hatsworth will depend heavily on how this is manipulated. Perhaps, EA Tiburon could add a questionaire or a slider bar in the option menu that lets players decide what aspect of the gameplay they prefer and let the game lean on that.

With five worlds, a dozen secret levels and shop to buy stronger items, Hatsworth promises a good amount of gameplay. The only sad part is that players have to wait a while for the game to come out.

There’s nothing fancy about Planet Platformer other than the fact that it takes place on a circular level. Players control a stick figure who jumps around a mazelike level grabbing gold stars. The object of each stage is to capture… Continue Reading →

There’s nothing fancy about Planet Platformer other than the fact that it takes place on a circular level. Players control a stick figure who jumps around a mazelike level grabbing gold stars. The object of each stage is to capture them all to advance.

After a couple of playthroughs, the platformer emerges into something of a puzzle game. Players have to figure out how to reach higher areas with the quirky gravity and level design. On top of that, Planet Platformer’s soundtrack is retro with sound effects straight from Super Mario Bros.

For the uninitiated, the game is unforgiving. In other words, it has its difficult moments. Make a mistake and misjudge a jump and players will have to start the game over from the beginning. But overall, the level design and concept is good.